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Banquet Speech

On November ninth, very far from here in a
poor country house in an old Provencal town, I received the
telephone call that informed me of the choice of the Swedish
Academy. I would not be honest if I told you, as one does in
such cases, that it was the profoundest emotional moment of my
life. A great philosopher has said that even the most vehement
feelings of joy hardly count in comparison with those which
provoke sorrow. I do not wish to strike a note of sadness at this
dinner, which I shall forever remember, but let me say
nonetheless that in the course of the past fifteen years my
sorrows have far exceeded my joys. And not all of those sorrows
have been personal - far from it. But I can certainly say that in
my entire literary life no other event has given me so much
legitimate satisfaction as that little technical miracle, the
telephone call from Stockholm to Grasse. The prize established by
your great countryman, Alfred Nobel, is still the highest reward
that can crown the work of a writer. Ambitious like most men and
all writers, I was extremely proud to receive that reward at the
hands of the most competent and impartial of juries, and be
assured, gentlemen of the Academy, I was also extremely grateful.
But I should have proved a paltry egotist if on that ninth of
November I had thought only of myself. Overwhelmed by the
congratulations and telegrams that began to flood me, I thought
in the solitude and silence of night about the profound meaning
in the choice of the Swedish Academy. For the first time since the
founding of the Nobel Prize you have awarded it to an exile. Who
am I in truth? An exile enjoying the hospitality of France, to
whom I likewise owe an eternal debt of gratitude. But, gentlemen
of the Academy, let me say that irrespective of my person and my
work your choice in itself is a gesture of great beauty. It is
necessary that there should be centres of absolute independence
in the world. No doubt, all differences of opinion, of
philosophical and religious creeds, are represented around this
table. But we are united by one truth, the freedom of thought and
conscience; to this freedom we owe civilization. For us writers,
especially, freedom is a dogma and an axiom. Your choice,
gentlemen of the Academy, has proved once more that in Sweden the
love of liberty is truly a national cult.

Finally, a few words to end this short
speech: my admiration for your royal family, your country, your
people, your literature, does not date from this day alone. Love
of letters and learning has been a tradition with the royal house
of Sweden as with your entire noble nation. Founded by an
illustrious soldier, the Swedish dynasty is one of the most
glorious in the world. May His Majesty the King, the chivalrous
King of a chivalrous people, permit a stranger, a free writer
honoured by the Swedish Academy, to express to him these
sentiments of profound respect and deep emotion.

The speech of the laureate was preceded by
the following remarks by Professor Wilhelm Nordenson of the
Caroline
Institute: «Not only the efforts to explore the
subtleties of atoms and chromosomes have been rewarded today;
also brilliant efforts to describe the subtleties of the human
soul have been crowned with the golden laurel of the Nobel Prize.
You have, Mr. Bunin, thoroughly explored the soul of vanished
Russia, and in doing so, you have most meritoriously continued
the glorious traditions of the great Russian literature. You have
given us the most valuable picture of Russian society as it once
was, and well do we understand the feelings with which you must
have seen the destruction of the society with which you were so
intimately connected. May our feelings of sympathy be of some
comfort to you in the melancholy of exile.»